


Blue Christmas

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, First Christmas, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Homesickness, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 07:30:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13141947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: When Allura finds herself a little lost and lonely, Lance finds ways to make her feel more at home. Written for the allurancexchange on Tumblr, for team-moonlark!





	Blue Christmas

  Allura didn’t regret coming down to Earth, really. The place that Lance had missed so much had turned out to be a beautiful planet, and they  _needed_ her diplomatic skills to ease the skeptics in power into the possibility of intergalactic connections. She enjoyed the discussions, even if she’d wondered how much faster they’d go if she still had a lion behind her or a Castle ship to threaten some of the pompous idiots who liked to comment on her youth and beauty like they stopped her from doing her job.

               She didn’t regret it. But on days like today, when she found herself staring out of the New York apartment window at what looked like an endless field of grey, she couldn’t help but miss the way the stars had sparkled, or the shining light of the suns. Her apartment wasn’t any less sparse than the concrete skyline – it was something NASA had set up for her, or maybe it was the Pentagon. She couldn’t keep the names straight.

               Allura peered out the window and down. There were people walking around below, as small as ants. Going to work, going to school, going out to clubs –

               She sighed, and pulled herself away from the window. It wasn’t anybody’s fault but her own that she was bored.

               The door clicked open and she started to attention –

               “Hey hey!” Lance pulled the beanie off his head with a grin. “I’m home – with candy canes!”

               “…Candy canes?”

               “Oh yeah, I guess this is your first winter on Earth.” Lance shrugged off his coat and flashed her a grin. “They’re nice. You’ll like ‘em –“ Then he paused. “Are you okay?”

               Allura managed a smile, but she could feel how forced it was, and let it drop. “…Oh, I’m just. I think I’m…” She took a deep breath. “I love Earth. I’m just…”

               “Homesick?”

               “I think so. Everything is so…  _grey._ ”

               Lance finished taking off his coat and hung it up, then glanced at the window with a growing smile. “Don’t worry. It won’t be grey for long.”

               “What does that mean?” Allura turned to look out of the window – and then gasped. It looked almost like it was raining, but in slow-motion. “Is – is the rain –  _floating?_ ”

               “I should have guessed. No snow on Altea?”

               “Snow?”

               He opened the door to the balcony. “Come on.”

               Allura gave him a concerned look, then got to her feet, poking her head nervously out of the door. “It’s not rain?”

               “No, no.” Then Lance gave the snow an equally-concerned look. Allura sighed.

               “…Have  _you_ never seen this stuff before either?”

               “I’ve seen it on TV! I grew up in Florida, Allura. Not a lot of snow down there.”

               “I don’t know what that means. What  _is_ snow?”

               Lance laughed, taking a step out onto the balcony and shivering a little. “When it gets to the right temperature, rain stops being rain and it freezes in the clouds. So instead of falling in water drops, it falls as this.” He put his hand through his shirt and caught one of the white flakes. “Look! It’s a snowflake.”

               Allura leaned close, and blinked. She’d never seen something with that kind of structure. “It’s… it’s so  _pretty._ And  _small._  Do they all look like that?”

               “They’re all different!”

               “Every single one?”

               “Every single one.”

               Allura took a nervous step out of the door, and reached out her hand. A snowflake landed in the center, and she brought it close to her face – “Oh no,” she sighed. “It melted.”

               “Don’t worry. You get enough of them together and you can make snowballs, snowmen –“

               “Is this all Christmas stuff?”

               Lance chuckled, sticking his hands into his pockets. His cheeks were starting to turn red from the cold – or at least, thought Allura with a bit of a flush, she  _thought_ it was from the cold. “Yeah. There’s a lot of stuff around Christmas. I guess I should have told you more about it.”

               “Well, it’s never too late to start! What kind of holiday is it?”

               “Oh, it  _started_ as a religious thing. But it’s about…” Lance was definitely red. It was  _definitely_ the cold. “It’s about family. And sharing what you have. Celebrating the end of the year and the new one coming. Giving presents.”

               “That sounds  _lovely._ ”

               “Also a reindeer with a red nose.”

               “What? What happened to the poor rain deer?”

               “Oh, he was born with a nose that glowed.”

               “That seems unhealthy. Also, what makes him a rain deer? If it’s a Christmas thing should it not be a  _snow_ deer?”

               Lance burst in laughter. Allura felt vaguely offended.

               “It’s an  _important question!_ You humans with your mixed metaphors!”

               Truth be told, it was a wonder there hadn’t been  _more_ diplomatic incidents.

—

               “…It’s good to hear from you too.”

               Lance watched from the doorway. He could hear Hunk’s voice on the other end. He wasn’t going to interrupt – he and Hunk called each other just about every day – but Allura had taken a while to get used to the phone. It was an odd thing he’d never considered – how hard it was for her to adjust to having to hold something to her ear. She was too used to headsets and videos.

               She hung up with a soft smile, although he could see tears glimmering at the corner of her eyes. “Oh.. that was nice.”

               He leaned against the doorframe, returning the smile. “You miss them, huh?”

               “I didn’t think I  _would._ I spent an awful lot of time complaining about what terrible paladins you all were.”

               “If my memory serves me right,” he drawled, “that stopped right about the time  _you_ became one.”

               She buried her head in her hands. “Oh, ancestors forgive me. I’m just glad Blue didn’t fire me from the pilot seat.”

               Lance chuckled, then kept his eyes on her, watching her expression as it fell. “You, uh. You miss Coran, too?”

               “Every day.” She managed a smile. “I know he’s doing important stuff. I just –“ She sighed. “Do you ever feel like we used to be making a difference? And now we’re just sitting in meeting rooms arguing with people who are going off to argue with more people?”

               “All the time. I miss shooting people. It was easier.” Lance sat down on the bed next to her. “…I think I have something that might help.”

—-

               She’d been informed she wasn’t allowed to even look in the direction of the balcony for the next hour, so she entertained herself with a crossword puzzle (she cheated more than she should have, but her grasp of English vocabulary was shaky even with a translator) until Lance came springing up to her. “Ready?”

               “Lance, what’s this about?” she laughed, and he took her hand, putting his other hand over her eyes.

               “Okay, let me just – watch your step, princess – there we go.”

               Allura shivered as they crossed the threshold back out onto the balcony. “Can I open my eyes yet?”

               “Not yet. Keep ‘em closed – please?” He pulled his hands away, and set something very gently on top of her head. Then there was a click from behind her, and she laughed, shivering as snowflakes landed on her feet. It wasn’t snowing as heavily as it had been; she could tell that much.

               “Okay, open up.”

               She opened her eyes – and gasped. The balcony was ringed around with an assortment of candles – he’d obviously just used whatever he could find, from tea lights to chubby scented lavender candles to tall, stately things that were melting slowly.

               “What’s on my-“ She reached up, and her hand met a wood tiara, tinsel woven through it. She turned to face Lance, and her heart skipped a beat when she realized he was holding a camcorder.

               “I can’t get Coran here for Christmas,” he said apologetically. “Not that he knows what it  _is._  But – but I figure we can record something for him. You know? And I know it’s not the same but like, we’re buddies with astronauts and they owe us  _so_ many favours –“

               She rubbed the tinsel from her crown through her fingers and felt her eyes water, even as the smile bloomed on her face. “Lance… I – I don’t know how to thank you…”

               He shrugged. “You were there for me when I missed my family.”

               “I was?” Then she stuttered, trying to make it sound less like a question. “I-I mean of course I was.”

               He snorted, setting up the tripod and leaning on the banister near the door. “I was pretty lonely, you know? I don’t know. I know I bugged you a lot early on. But poking fun at me actually  _helped._ I didn’t want anybody to know.”

               “I – well –“

               “Not sure I’ll forgive you for the mouse, though,” he said with an exaggerated expression, sticking out his tongue. “Some days I can still taste the fur.”

               Allura stifled her laugh with the back of her hand. “Is – is that why you stayed here? With me? Everybody else…” She couldn’t quite finish the sentence – even just reasoning through the train of logic was making her face turn hot.

               “Haha.” Lance stared at his feet, but couldn’t hide the cheeky grin – or the matching blush. “I… well, I think you know.” He hopped to his feet. “Let’s film that video for Coran, shall we?”

               Allura couldn’t help but roll her eyes. They’d get to it, eventually. All the same…

               All the same, it was reassuring. Lance was here, with her. And if the unspoken understanding was as true and honest as she hoped it was, then he wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.


End file.
